1. Field of the Invention
This invention is concerned with a dispersion of fine zeolite particles exemplified by ZSM-5 and ZSM-11 crystals in a hydrocarbon oil. It is more particularly concerned with a reactive dispersion of such particles in a hydrocarbon oil such as, for example, a waxy virgin crude oil. It is further concerned with a process for upgrading a waxy or excessively viscous hydrocarbon oil by forming a reactive dispersion of such with fine particles of zeolite and heating the same. The process of this invention results in reduction of the pour point, or of the viscosity, or of both, of the heavy oil.
2. Prior Art
The use of zeolite catalysts based on rare-earth exchanged zeolites X and Y has become widely accepted by the petroleum industry for cracking gas oil to make gasoline and fuel oil. More recently, other petroleum and petrochemical processes which utilize zeolite catalysts have been proposed. U.S. Reissue Pat. No. 28,398 to Chen et al describes the dewaxing of oils by shape selective cracking and hydrocracking catalyzed by zeolites of the ZSM-5 type, and includes examples to pour point reduction of a shale oil, a lube base stock and a gas oil. U.S. Pat No. 3,668,113 to Burbidge et al describes the dewaxing of a heavy gas oil by contact in the presence of hydrogen with a crystalline mordenite containing a hydrogenation component. Many other patents have issued which describe the treatment of particular feedstocks or a particular manner of treating a feedstock. To the best of applicant's knowledge and belief, however, all known or proposed processes which involve zeolite catalyzed hydrocarbon reactions utilize a fixed bed reactor with particles no smaller than 1/25th of an inch diameter, or a fluidized bed of catalyst, as in catalytic cracking, wherein the particle size ranges from about 1 to 140 microns with an average particle size about 62 microns, and in all of these processes the reaction is conducted with a relatively large amount of catalyst in contact with the feed at any given instant. Even a flooded trickle bed reactor, for example, will have more than about 40 parts by weight of catalyst in contact with 100 parts of oil at any given instant.